Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Isn't it beautiful? Well this is a screen shot of Fedora. In the last few posts you read about Ubuntu so here are some reviews of Fedora. Decide about the title question on your own, although most agree that Ubuntu is the best. However your needs may be different, also the Live USB option is cool to have.

Fedora 9 Gives Ubuntu a Run For Its Money

The Fedora Project has released Fedora 9, a significant upgrade for the popular Linux distribution. Fedora 9 packs in a number of new features including an improved package management system, KDE 4 and more.

Perhaps the best part of Fedora 9 is the new live USB options. Fedora has always made it easy to go from a live CD to a bootable USB stick, but the new options allow for a non-destructive install and persistent data. The non-destructive part means that, provided your USB stick has space, you can install Fedora 9 and none of your existing files will be lost.

Thanks to the persistent data features, booting from a live USB install isn’t just a temporary trial experience like the live CD — any changes you make or files you create are stored and available the next time you boot up, and that includes system files as well. Fedora sent me a live USB stick with RC1 last week and I was able to upgrade the USB stick to the final release this morning without issue (note that the Fedora Project servers appear to slammed at the moment, so be patient and use a torrent download if possible).

Fedora 9 introduces a nice upgrade to PackageKit which allows you to treat all your updates the same whether they’re RPG, UM or Apt. There’s also a new feature that detects when you’re missing a piece of software needed to open a file. PackageKit will pop up a window offering to install what you need (provided there’s a free software package available).

Fedora continues its long tradition of strong Java support with OpenJDK6 and IcedTea (an implementation of OpenJDK, released in Fedora 8) included by default.

As always Fedora ships with both GNOME and KDE desktops available. The GNOME version comes with the 2.22 and all its assorted goodness like GVFS and more (see our Ubuntu review for more on what’s new in GNOME 2.22). On the KDE side Fedora 9 makes a leap of faith and defaults to KDE 4 with all the latest and greatest eye candy and new features.

After playing with the release candidate for a week or so I’m happy to report that Fedora 9 has made some significant strides and gives Ubuntu a serious run for its money when it comes to user-friendliness.

First Look at Sulphur, Fedora 9

- Encryption support, ext4 filesystem, kernel 2.6.25 and more!

Believe it or not, Fedora 9 (dubbed Sulphur) is here! It was OFFICIALLY released (as expected) today May 13th, 2008. With hard drive encryption support implemented in the graphical installer (a feature that is missing from the popular Ubuntu distribution), latest Linux kernel 2.6.25, GNOME 2.22.1, GIMP 2.4.5 and Firefox 3 Beta 5, we guess the final release will really rock your world and it is our pleasure, here at Softpedia Labs, to introduce you to the latest features of Fedora 9. Powered by the latest and greatest Linux kernel, version 2.6.25, Fedora 9 Sulphur brings you ext4 support, a filesystem that's more scalable and performs much better than ext3. Although it is considered to work better than ext3, it is still under development and not enabled by default, with some features that are not fully completed. Moreover, Fedora 9 doesn't bring you a fully ext4-compatible version of e2fsprogs, although this utility can create filesystems mountable by ext4. Fedora 9 sports the latest stable release of the popular desktop environment, GNOME 2.22.1, which features the brand new Cheese webcam photo and video making utility, Google Calendar support, PolicyKit integration, better network filesystem support and much more. If you are a KDE fan, you will get KDE 4.0.3, so you can install one or both desktop environments.

Linux examined: Fedora 9

The community edition of Red Hat's distro works well and is widely supported -- but it can be a difficult install.

By James Turner

May 14, 2008 (Computerworld) For many of us, our first painful introduction to old-school Linux installs came from installing early versions of Red Hat. Like most early Linux installs, it was a highly technical, highly finicky process that was best left to the experts.

Well, times have changed. Today, many Linux users are getting blasé about the ease with which we can install Linux. We've been spoiled by distributions such as Ubuntu, which is actually easier to install than Windows. Unfortunately, Fedora 9, the community edition of Red Hat, was a bit too much of a blast from the past for me.

This new release keeps Fedora in step with the rest of the popular distributions, updating Gnome and KDE to recent releases, improving the network management capability, freshening the kernel and adding a USB booting capability.

At a Glance

Cons: Installation may intimidate nontechnical people, and may not deal well with multiboot environments.

Who should use this: Experienced Linux users who want an enterprise-grade distribution or will be deploying software to Red Hat Enterprise.

However, when comparing Linux distributions today, the differentiating factors are fairly limited -- a 2.6.x kernel is a 2.6.x kernel, Gnome is Gnome, KDE is KDE and so on. So you have to look at a few specific factors. How easy is the install? How well does it recognize and accommodate different operating systems that share the disk? What's the package manager like? Does the distribution offer you the chance to use proprietary drivers for your hardware? How well does it work with Wi-Fi?

Most people who want to try Linux give up that idea as soon as they read online guides. Most online guides (like this one)will tell you to partition drive, do some thing with grub, boot loader, restart 10 times, create a partition called gccx, do this do that pooh! No wonder the myth that Linux is only for geeks continues. Finally some time in 2007 situation changed, you could install Linux (Ubuntu) along side your Windows (XP or Vista) thanks to a miracle called Wubi. With Wubi, installing Linux is a child's play.

Wubi allows Ubuntu and Windows to coexist on the same computer. Wubi provides a complete Ubuntu installer that can be run in Windows from the Ubuntu Live CD. It installs Ubuntu into a folder on the Windows file system and sets up a boot menu so that users can choose between Windows and Ubuntu when the computer starts.

Unlike a regular dual-boot configuration, Wubi doesn't require users to create a partition on their hard drives for Ubuntu. When Ubuntu is installed with Wubi, it can be uninstalled directly from the Add/Remove Programs utility in Windows.

The installer is trivially easy to use and works just like a regular Windows installation program. Wubi keeps most of the files in one folder, and if you do not like it, you can simply uninstall it as any other application.

The difficulty of installing Linux is a big problem for Linux hopefuls. Wubi eliminates the challenges associated with installation and makes it possible for almost anybody to test Ubuntu in a dual-boot configuration without any risk or major commitment. Wubi doesn't work with with the 64-bit version of Ubuntu.

Some might say that other distro's had the same functionality before Ubuntu, that is true but Ubuntu is the most mainstream distro. Remember the password correctly, the installer takes about 20 min.

If you have around 256 MB RAM and Wubi gives you error saying 'atleast 256 MB required for the installer' use this trick:

Open a run box (Win+R), go into the folder that contains wubi.exe and run the path: example- e:/wubi.exe –skipmemorycheck.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Here are 10 reasons why you might want to switch from Widows to Ubuntu. You can find the original article here. I have tweaked the article a bit.

1) Eye Candy : If I am completely honest, the biggest reason why I converted was the eye candy. Sure Windows Vista comes with lots of it, but it just isn’t as good. Ubuntu 8.04 comes with just a few of the effects seen a lot nowadays, these effects include the rotating cube desktop and wobbly windows, it just makes it much nicer to use. Ubuntu comes with Compiz pre installed and I must say Compiz is the best thing that happened after sliced bread. Compiz rocks. Vista's 'wow' is nothing as compared to Compiz. Compiz outstrips even Macs for its coolness. And to top it all, Compiz doesn't eat as much resource as Vista.

2) Easy to Install Applications

Installing new programs in Ubuntu is a doddle, far easier than in Windows, because there is one program called Synaptic that basically gives you access to most applications available to Ubuntu, simply click the program you want and it will install, you don’t need to accept agreements because its all open source so there is no need to click Next 20 times before the program is installed. Simply select the program and click OK, wallah! done.Ubuntu will download the installation files, install them and start the application on its own. For an XP guy like me this was a complete nirvana!

3) Secure

In Windows Vista, to change a setting requires a ridiculous amount of dialog boxes and passwords, in Ubuntu, you are never logged in as an administrator (root), you are logged in as a simple user, you can change options that are only applicable to your user area but for changing options that affect the system you are required to input the administrator password, one dialog and you’re in, simple and secure. There is also the added bonus that there are very few viruses for Linux, I haven’t ever come across one yet so you can feel safe, imagine not having any virus protection software installed in Windows, there is no need for it in Linux, freedom from the threat of losing all your data. Mac OSX has its origins in UNIX as does Linux, so both of them share the same level of security.

4) Easy to change options

Ubuntu comes with a control panel but also comes with a menu next to the Applications menu where you simply select the thing you want to change, be it the Desktop background or the network settings. Everything on the windows that appear is simple and there are just the options you need so it is easy to change the options.

5) Community

The community behind Linux, especially Ubuntu is what attracts many people to the operating system. People in the Linux community are mainly ex-Windows users so they know what it feels like to be new to an operating system, so they are happy to help. Whenever I had and have a problem with Ubuntu I simply post on the Ubuntu forum and within minutes there are answers to the problems. I never got put on hold or had to phone up customer service and wait for hours if I had any problems. In the Linux world the best community support is offered by Ubuntu. Ubuntu's parent company Canonical started offering free 30-days customer service for those who buy Ubuntu pre-installed PC for PC vendors. In response Microsoft started free customer support for all Vista customers. So all those of you who have Vista you know whom to thank for the free gift.

6) Free

Everything about Ubuntu is free, the operating system (you can even have them send you a free copy of the operating system, they even pay the postage charges), the software installed is free (including all the software you can download) any help and support is free. The whole experience is 100% free, because it is open source. Open source means that you can distribute and even edit the code behind the program.

7) Simple Networking

The other day I was amazed with how easy it was to connect my Ubuntu laptop to my Windows XP PC. I simply plugged in my laptop to the network hub and it immediately connected with no problems, I didn’t even have to configure it. While installing Ubuntu keep the internet connection on, this helps Ubuntu to recognize it. Up till now Ubuntu had some problems with wireless, however with Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) set to be released in September all those issues are set to become history.

Mozilla Firefox

OK, I know that you can use Firefox on Vista as well, but on Ubuntu, there is no Internet Explorer that keeps popping up and cant get rid of. Mozilla Firefox is the number one web browser (remember, my opinions).

9) Fast

Windows Vista is slow and takes up a lot of resources which means you need a pretty decent computer to run it, I know with my 1GHz computer with 512MB of RAM it was too slow to work with. Ubuntu is just fast, it doesn’t slow down in performance when it has been on for a couple of hours, it just keeps on going and everything opens literally a second after you click the icon, and closes when you click the X, with Windows Vista you have to wait for like 30 seconds before a program starts and try shutting down a program like Word 2007 or Visual Studio after using it for a couple of hours, it takes forever. Ubuntu 8.04 ran cool on my old PC with measly 256 MB RAM.

10) Updates

Ubuntu gets updated every 6 months, well as close as it can do, and whenever I turn my computer on there are updates for the programs installed. Compare that to Windows, how often does that get updated, well the 5 years between Windows XP and Vista sort of answers that question.

[In this part of my series on choosing the correct distro, I have decided to present some reviews of the latest OS of that distro. First distro to be featured here is Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron). This review is from FOSSwire. The original article can be accessed here.]

It’s official: Ubuntu 8.04 has gone gold. This is one of the most highly anticipated releases of Ubuntu to date, but does it hold up to the hype? We take a look at what’s new, what’s stable, what’s good and what’s not in our latest review.

Ubuntu 8.04 is a LTS release. This means that this release will receive security updates and support for three years for desktop users and five years for server users. Being an LTS, the major focus is clearly stability and building up the strength of existing features. That doesn’t mean however that it is without its share of new features….

Features

To start, 8.04 ships with GNOME 2.22. This, to the user, may not look entirely new, but the bulk of new features are hidden below the surface. GVFS replaces the old GNOME-VFS system with an entirely new backend, allowing for applications to use any resource, such as SSH or a Samba share, in a uniform manner. GVFS provides a FUSE hook that allows applications that don’t even support GVFS to use the services provided by it. While GNOME-VFS took criticism for being somewhat slow and tedious, GVFS stands to fix that image.

GNOME 2.22 also introduces other features, such as the Cheese webcam viewer, Metacity compositing, Google Calendar support in Evolution, and a new remote desktop viewer. Personally, I think that the inclusion of Cheese, while nice to GNOME, could have been replaced on the default Ubuntu setup with something else, as a webcam viewer seems a little extraneous.

A new addition to the default Ubuntu setup is the Brasero disc burning utility, which allows users to make a CD or DVD with very little effort.

Also new is Transmission, a newly popular BitTorrent client. This replaces the old standard BitTorrent utility, allowing for better torrent management with an interface similar to µTorrent.

Introduced in 7.10, PulseAudio provides a sound system for applications to hook into. It allows the volume of individual applications to be controlled, mixed into other sound devices, and with a little work, even played out of Bluetooth headphones. 8.04 improves upon this by enabling the sound server for most, if not all, applications. There are a few gripes here and there, such as minor bugs with Flash audio, but 95% of it works very well.

Firefox 3 is included in the package, even in its beta form. It has apparently been proven to be stable enough to be included, though updates to the final release are likely to follow in June.

Security and Stability

As stated above, 8.04 is focused on improving the ground laid out, and not radically changing things. Security enhancements galore ensure this release will indeed have a long life. One major security feature of GNOME 2.22 and 8.04 is the introduction of PolicyKit. PolicyKit allows fine-grained access control, and helps you allow or deny users access to specific parts of applications. This allows for a system to be locked down completely except to a group of trusted users.

Another addition in the security field is ufw, or “Uncomplicated Firewall.” The firewall is an extension of iptables, and while it does not currently have a GUI, the command-line interface is dead simple:

ufw deny 80 ufw allow from 192.168.1.1 port 80

Other security additions include more strict memory protection and application rules, along with the addition of SELinux support.

Many applications have gone through the usual slew of bug fixes with any release, and the update to X.Org 7.3 is no different. 7.3 provides support for newer compositing mechanisms, though the implementation is somewhat unfinished. The end result may be a slightly slower Compiz and 3D acceleration for some, but lays yet more groundwork for a more stable display system.

Theme

The beta release of 8.04 saw yet another new theme, however the older one was reverted as the default. The theme that almost made the release is still available in Appearance properties, but it didn’t make the final cut for default status. For now, users will be greeted by the tried-and-true Human theme, with 8.10 to have a major theme overhaul.

Below is a preview of the proposed default theme for 8.04, still available on the CD:

Overall

Ubuntu 8.04 is a great release that definitely lives up to the attention it received. It adds several new features and applications, while improving on a solid security base. It’s not without problems: the speed of some 3D applications may be an issue for some folks, and the use of beta software could be a potential problem, but the good features far outnumber the problems.

Hardy Heron, a big release for both the home user and enterprise, is yet another milestone in the Linux cycle. Of course, more Ubuntu releases will come every six months, and we’ll be following the developments of the next version: the Intrepid Ibex. For its time though, 8.04 is a winner.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

For beginners the topic of distros can be quite confusing. How ever there is no need for normal users to think much about distros. Here is a list of popular distros and few words about them:

Fedora is an RPM-based, general purpose Linux distribution, developed by the community-supported Fedora Project and sponsored by Red Hat. Fedora's mission statement is: "Fedora is about the rapid progress of Free and Open Source software."

One of Fedora's main objectives is not only to contain free and open source software, but also to be on the leading edge of such technologies.Also, developers in Fedora prefer to make upstream changes instead of applying fixes specifically for Fedora — this ensures that updates are available to all Linux distributions.

Kubuntu and Xubuntu are official subprojects of the Ubuntu project, aiming to bring the KDE and Xfcedesktop environments, respectively, to the Ubuntu core (by default Ubuntu uses GNOME for its desktop environment).The most recent version, Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron), was released on April 24, 2008, although an update, Ubuntu 8.04.1 LTS, was released on July 3, 2008. The next version will be 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) and is scheduled for release in October 2008.

[ Currently Ubuntu is the most popular and best Linux OS. I use Ubuntu. Ubuntu sends free CD's right at your doorstep for free. You read it correctly. You can get a free Ubuntu CD shipped to your house from here:

Request an Ubuntu CD , It takes about 20 odd days for the CD to be shipped. You can get the CD within 2-3 days if you buy it.

The precursor to PCLinuxOS was a set of RPM packages created to improve successive versions of Mandrake Linux (now Mandriva Linux). These packages were created by Bill Reynolds, a packager better known as Texstar.[1] From the year 2000 to 2003, Texstar maintained his repository of RPM packages in parallel with the PCLinuxOnline Web site. In an interview, Reynolds said he started PCLinuxOS "to provide an outlet for [his] crazy desire to package source code without having to deal with egos, arrogance and politics."

openSUSE, is a community project, sponsored by Novell and AMD, to develop and maintain a general purpose Linux distribution. After acquiring SUSE Linux in January 2004, Novell decided to release the SUSE Linux Professional product as a 100% open source project, involving the community in the development process. The initial release was a beta version of SUSE Linux 10.0, and as of June 2008 the current stable release is openSUSE 11.0.

Beyond the distribution, openSUSE provides a web portal for community involvement. The community assists in developing openSUSE collaboratively with representatives from Novell by contributing code through the open Build Service, writing documentation, designing artwork, fostering discussion on open mailing lists and in Internet Relay Chat channels, and improving the openSUSE site through its wiki interface. Novell employed over 500 developers working on SUSE in 2004. Novell markets openSUSE as the best, easiest distribution for all users.

These are some of the best ways to start off with Linux. There are some other distro's such as Puppy Linux, but they aren't exactly aimed at main stream market, so more about them later. Here is an excellent online quiz which will help you in choosing a distro based on your requirements.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

When Linus Torvalds first developed Linux back in August of 1991, the operating system basically consisted of his kernel and some GNU tools. With the help of others Linus added more and more tools and applications.

With time, individuals, university students and companies began distributing Linux with their own choice of packages bound around Linus' kernel. This is where the concept of the "distribution" was born.

A 'distro' typically consists of Linux kernal and an assortment of various software. Now Linux on its own cannot play mp3s or movies. However if you put in some software to do such tasks, you get a distro.

Redhat is the grand daddy of Linux distros. Of late there has been a great flurry in the Linux market and developments have been going on at fast pace.

In the next post I'll tell you about some of the most popular distros and help you in choosing the correct distro according to your needs.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Having Linux on your PC, either primary or secondary has many benefits. Some of the obvious ones are:

Forget about viruses:

If your computer shuts itself down without asking you, if strange windows with text you don't understand and all kinds of advertisements appear when you don't ask for them, if emails get sent to all your contacts without your knowing it, then your computer probably has a virus. The main reason for this is because it runs Windows.

Linux hardly has any viruses. And that's not like "Oh well, not very often, you know". That's like "If you've ever heard of a real Linux virus, please tell me". Of course, a Linux virus is not impossible to get. However, Linux makes it very hard for this to happen, for several reasons:

Linux uses smart authorization management. In Windows you (and any program you install) usually have the right to do pretty much anything to the system. If you feel like punishing your PC because it just let your precious work disappear, you can go inside the system folder and delete whatever you want: Windows won't complain. Of course, the next time you reboot, trouble begins. But imagine that if you can delete this system stuff, other programs can, too, or just mess it up. Linux doesn't allow that. Every time you request to do something that has to do with the system, an administrator password is required (and if you're not an administrator on this system, you simply can't do it). Viruses can't just go around and delete or modify what they want in the system; they don't have the authorization for that.

Don't pay $300 for your operating system:

(And don't copy them illegally)

You're probably saying to yourself : "Oh, I didn't pay for Windows". Are you absolutely sure ? If your computer came with a copy of Windows, then you paid for it, even if the store didn't tell you about that. The price for a Windows license amounts to an average of one fourth of each new computer's price. So unless you obtained Windows illegally, you probably paid for it. Where do you think Microsoft gets its money from?

On the other hand, you can get Linux completely free of charge. That's right, all these guys all around the world worked very hard to make a neat, secure, efficient, good-looking system, and they are giving their work away for everybody to use freely (if you wonder why these guys do such things, drop me an email and I'll try to explain the best I can :) ). Of course, some companies are making good business by selling support, documentation, hotline, etc., for their own version of Linux, and this is certainly a good thing. But most of the time, you won't need to pay a cent.

Freedom!

Linux and "Open Source" software are "free". This means their license is a "free license", and the most common is the GPL (General Public License). This license states that anyone is allowed to copy the software, see the source code (the "recipe"), modify it, and redistribute it as long as it remains licensed with the GPL.

So what do you care about freedom? Imagine that Microsoft disappears tomorrow (okay, that's not very likely, but what about in 5 years, 10 years?). Or imagine it suddenly triples the price for a Windows or Office license. If you're tied to Windows, there's nothing you can do. You (or your business) relies on this one company, on its software, and you can't possibly make things work without it (what good is a computer without an operating system?). Isn't that a serious problem? You're depending on one single company and trusting it wholeheartedly to let something so important nowadays as your computers work the way they should. If Microsoft decides to charge $1000 for the next version of Windows, there's nothing you can do about it (except switch to Linux, of course). If Windows has a bug that bothers you very much and Microsoft won't fix it, there's nothing you can do (and submitting bugs to Microsoft isn't that easy, see the "Report bugs" section).

With Open Source, if a particular project or support company dies, all the code remains open to the community and people can keep improving it. If this project is especially useful to you, you can even do this yourself. If a particular bug annoys you, you can submit it, talk with the developers, but even better, you can fix it yourself (or hire someone to do so), and send the changes back to the upstream developers so that everyone gets the improvement as well. You're free to do (nearly) whatever you want with the software.

Update all your software with a single click:

Windows has a pretty convenient tool called "Windows update", which allows you to update your system with the latest updates available.

But what about all your non-Microsoft software ? Adobe applications ? ZIP compressor ? Burning program ? Non-Microsoft web browsers and email clients, etc. ? You need to update all of them, one by one. And that takes time, since each one of them has its own (auto-)updating system.

Linux has a central place called the "Package manager", which takes care of everything installed on your system, but also every single piece of software your computer has. So if you want to keep everything up-to-date, the only thing you need to do is press the "Install Updates" button down there :

Are your tired of restarting your computer all the time?

Have you just upgraded one or two little things on your Windows system with "Windows update"? Please reboot. Have you just installed some new software? Please reboot. Does your system seem unstable? Try to reboot, everything will probably work better after that.

Windows always asks you to restart your computer, and that can be annoying (maybe you happen to have a long download going on, and you don't want to interrupt it just because you updated a few pieces of your system). But even if you click "Restart later", Windows still keeps bothering you every ten minutes to let you know that you really should restart the computer. And if you happen to be away from your computer and you didn't see the question, it will happily reboot automatically. Bye bye long download.

Linux basically doesn't need to restart. Whether you install new software (even very big programs) or perform routine upgrades for your system, you will not be asked to restart the computer. It is only necessary when a part from the heart of the system has been updated, and that only happens once every several weeks.

Do you know Internet servers? They're the big computers that answer you when you ask for a web page, and send the information to your browser. Most of them run Linux, and since they need to always be available (a visitor could come anytime), they aren't restarted very often (services aren't available while the system is starting). Actually, many of them haven't restarted for several years. Linux is stable, it runs perfectly well without restarting all the time.

You'll probably not let your computer stay on for several weeks but the point is: the system won't bother you with restarting all the time.

You might not want to stop using Windows, but do give a try to Linux, you might like it so much that you will start using Linux for normal everyday usage. I tried Linux earlier this and now use XP only for playing games (FIFA08).

In my next post I will explain 'What are distros?' and how to chose the best one for you.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Thanks to Vista many people are seriously considering a switch to Linux. However there are many misconceptions surrounding Linux. and 'Help for Linux' aims to remove some of those misconceptions. On this blog I will put up blogs from various sites which will help you set up your own Linux PC and then later on I would suggest you Linux programs which will make Windows redundant on your PC.

In my first few posts I will try to make the idea of having Linux familiar to you, then I would introduce various 'distros' to you and help you in making the choice among them.